Students Study Small Patch Of Land As Part Of Global Research Project

Stephanie Morbeck sat on the grass, mixing dirt and water in a glass beaker.

Nearby, Brittany Parkes looked up at the sky through a device made of a toilet paper roll and string.

The yard next to St. John Vianney School became a classroom on Monday.

The school’s sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students measured the world around them as part of an international science and environmental education program.

After identifying cloud types and trees, the students submitted the data to NASA via computer.

The Catholic school in the Spokane Valley was the only one in Spokane County selected to take part in a five-year program: Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment.

“GLOBE students are contributing to a better understanding of the planet by making regular environmental observations at thousands of locations around the world and sharing their information via the Internet,” said organizer Steve Barnum.

It gave some St. John Vianney students a new appreciation for science.

“I like that you get to work with the chemicals and the equipment,” said Bailee Roup, who was helping Stephanie Morbeck make mud for a tool that measures soil moisture.

The sixth-grade girls said that the responsibility of collecting data for NASA made them feel important.

Brittany Parkes and other students were using the rolls to estimate how many branches the trees had and how much of the ground had vegetation.

The students started taking measurements of the atmosphere and climate, hydrology and water chemistry, and biology and geology on Monday. They will be taken regularly for the next five years.

Barnum, who teaches fourth grade, said that the students will be able to see their information combined with input from the other 1,500 schools involved and satellite imagery.

They will be able to see dynamic, online images of the Earth, he said.

The school didn’t have to pay for the supplies for the program, Barnum said. The school had to provide the computer.

The program is funded by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Students had to use their problemsolving skills in establishing the 30-square-meter space in the yard that they were examining. The square - what Barnum called a pixel - will be one unit that makes up the image of Eastern Washington displayed on the computer screen.

The students were using string to mark the square, but had to move the pixel more than once so that part of it wasn’t in the parking lot.

The GLOBE program also gets students to use math and English skills, Barnum said.

“What this teaches them is to be accurate,” Barnum added, saying that NASA would have students review their data if errors arise.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: On the Web The GLOBE student data will be available to the public on the World Wide Web at www.globe.gov.